


Messiah (I'm only Human)

by Ladyboo



Series: Darlin' and the Doctor [8]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Author taking so many liberties, BAMF Jim, Coming of Age, Domestic Fluff, M/M, My beta likes it and thats good enough, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Single Dad Bones, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, The Author Regrets Nothing, This will probably get dark, but most of my stuff does so I'm not surprised
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2018-11-13 09:20:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11181732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyboo/pseuds/Ladyboo
Summary: His little girl was a mess of ember and ash, and at this point, Len just wanted to stop feeling like he was running. Running from their problems, from their old life, from the way things had gone up in smoke. He had uprooted their entire lives, all because Joanna needed him to- except, the longer they spent in Queenswich, and the more enraptured Len became by the lighthouse keeper and his ward, the more he had to question whether the move was of his own free will, or if his sister's rambling about fate held weight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So! It's been a few months since I've posted anything, longer than I'm proud of, because I've been going out of my mind with finishing things up at Uni. I graduate in four days though, so I've actually been able to catch my breath enough to pull this piece together into something concrete. It takes a different speed than what I'm used to, and looks at some of the characters from a different perspective, but I must say that I'm rather proud of this first chapter.  
> Criticism, complaints, suggestions, I welcome any sort of opinions you darlings have! The idea for this started as a oneshot, and it kind of exploded on me. I'll be crafting a playlist eventually, but that's not my primary focus right now.  
> This is stuffed full of original characters, some of whom people on tumblr may have seen before in roleplay circles. Trust me, I own these characters.  
> Enjoy~

The rocking motion that had put her to sleep over an hour ago was surely going to wake her all over again, and Len slouched low in his seat, looking away from the game of Solitaire on his phone to gaze at his daughter.

Curled in the passenger seat, one leg was pulled to her chest and the other dangled down into the foot well, and a tear crawled across the right thigh of her dark, quilted tights. Pastel pink and glittering gold, the carousel print of her skirt sat rumpled high against her thighs, and that was part of it right there, that resonating ache in his chest, her legs were too thin, with hollow bird bones and easily bruised knees. Too thin, too long, coltish with knobby knees and thin ankles, and her arms were the same, nearly no muscle to speak of beneath the stretch of her dusky dark skin and the fine boned bundle of her wrists where they lay hidden beneath her sweater. Joanna looked soft in sleep, the curve of her jaw half hidden where her face was pressed into the seat back, and her short, springy curls of black would be pressed flat on one side, much to her displeasure, when she woke.

Barely fourteen years old, and he could remember the puff of her cherub cheeks and her gap toothed little grin from when she was three just as vividly as he could the petrified, anxious look that had been in her eyes only last week. For that was all it had been, one week since their lives had been forever changed by the flames that had eaten the magnolia tree in his Mama’s back yard, and _God_ , but how everything could change in just a few days.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the driver of the car in front of theirs stop trying to hash out some sort of bored Morse Code with their brake lights.

There were only a handful of other cars on the ferry, and yet they were tightly packed to make room for the refrigerated shipping containers that no doubt carried the things that the island couldn’t provide for itself. Milk, perhaps, or maybe beef, since he assumed they had enough poultry to go around and, if not, well surely there was an abundance of fish. Still, all in all, the ride had been mostly silent, gentle motions having taken over the entire ferry, causing the car to sway in place and its occupants to lull to sleep in their seats.

A quiet had overtaken the Highlander, and with the music turned low and a weary weight in his bones, Len reached out to carefully adjust the stretch of Joanna’s seat belt so it didn’t cut into her neck so sharply. His fingers brushed against the underside of her chin then, the curve of her jaw, and her dark skin was soft, unblemished from the steadfast application of his Mama’s home remedies. She looked a little underfed for his taste, her metabolism having kicked in faster than her body could stretch, and it was impossible anymore to keep much meat on her bones.

There were faint bruises under her eyes, skin sunken and violet dark from a lack of sleep, and he sighed.

Sleep hadn’t been easy, not for either of them. He could still hear the sound of her panicked screaming as that damn tree burst into flames, could still see the way that ember-bright magnolia blossoms had trailed after her stumbling form as if pulled in by her gravity. Her skin had been blisteringly warm, body trembling where he’d scooped her up and sprinted back onto the relative safety of the back deck.

He could still smell the fire on her, even now.

Tilting his head, Len pressed the button for the window beside him and lowered it so that the bitter, salt tang of sea air filtered into the vehicle. The cool was instantaneous, and he leaned against the door until his forearm dangled over the edge, fingertips swirling through the mist that had collected.

He closed down the Solitaire app with a flick of his thumb and, dropping the phone quietly into the only empty cup holder, stared at his daughter for a moment longer. Deep breathing, the gentle rise and fall of her chest mixed with the occasional twitching of her fingers where they lay curled in her lap, and her full lips were slack in sleep. It was the most relaxed he had seen her since they’d started their trip, and Len drank in the image that she made for a moment longer, before shifting to stare out the window.

A churning, open expanse of water, as far as the eye could see greeted him, fathomless and swirling and dismal dark. He could have lost himself then, staring out into the cresting waves and the hungry way that they lapped against one another, tidal and eternal all at once. Encroaching in on his vision though, from the waters before them that the ferry slowly journeyed through, there was land.

Unable to help himself, enraptured, Len undid his own seat belt and opened the door, stepping out onto the swaying floor of the ferry.

A rugged cliff face stood to their left, the modest height still enough to make his belly twist and, at its top, the land sloped, gentling out into a soft rolling that trickled its way down to the rest of the island. It was on that swell of land, just before the downward ease of the inlet, that the lighthouse stood majestic and looming, where it perched atop the Alaskan cliff. Weathered beige stonework of some sort, pocked looking even from a distance and scored in certain places; the spiral roof was a gleaming metallic white that shone in the light and despite the space that separated them, he could see the large bulb in the lantern room rotating despite the way the day was strikingly sunny.

The town seemed to spread from there, a few houses situated walking distance from the looming lighthouse, while the others sprawled down the rest of the sloping island. A crowd of them stood in the distance, so close to the water it looked like they could touch it, and even with the expanse of water that separated them, he could see cars crawling across the waterfront road. There was a bustle of life, visible across the distance that stood between them, and he sagged against the Highlander.

He couldn’t stay out here forever, even though he wanted to prolong this moment. This peace, this near-solitude, with his daughter asleep in the car and the world around him having narrowed down to the icy water that held them, and the island that waited to greet them in it’s grasp.

He missed his Mama then, missed her smile and her infinite, patient wisdom; he missed the sound of her laughter and the low murmur of her voice. He missed warmer weather, warmer water, and the tangy, sulfur scent that carried in from the glittering marsh. There would be no Spanish moss here, no bare toes in the sand and no days spent toiling under the Georgia sun.

There would be no Georgia, not for a long time, if ever again, and Len swallowed around the thick swell of emotion in his throat.

Pulling at the car door, casting one last glance over to the lighthouse where it slowly crept beside them, he folded himself into the vehicle once more. Joanna hadn’t moved, hadn’t noticed his absence enough to begin to, and Len watched her with a smile even as he reluctantly rolled up the window. Fingers settling on her short curls, he soothed them with his fingers, careful not to snare…

“Jojo, hey June bug, you want to see our new home?”

She snuffled, dark eyes cracking open to stare at him. Displeasure, confusion, but she reached out for him all the same, caught his wrist in her hand while the other rubbed at her eyes. She leaned into him, used her grip on him to untangle herself from her seat, and Joanna gave a slack-jawed yawn as she wriggled about. Len smiled at her, and twisted his wrist around until he held her hand, wrapping her fingers around her half empty bottle of Rose Lemonade. She’d nearly picked the label clean off, only the little dog’s face at the top remaining, and he could still remember the way her face had puckered up with the first drink after he’d tossed it to her at the gas station back in Wauna.

She nodded though, pulling herself up until she was settled, and Len watched with a small, growing grin as an open, startled kind of awe overtook her face. Bottle clutched tightly to her chest, Joanna pressed as far forward as she could in her seat, body nearly laid out across the dash to get a better look at their surroundings. He watched her go, unclipped her belt so she didn’t strangle herself, and leaned back in his own seat.

The ferry’s horn let out a loud tone, announcing their arrival to whoever worked on the dock, and Len gripped the wheel as he waited for the chance to disembark.

Her fingernails tapped out a rhythm on the dash, bottle clinking where it was pressed against the front windshield, and he didn’t even have the heart to tell his daughter to settle back into her seat. Soon enough, he felt the engine reverse below them as the ferry came to a slow stop, and the buildings that had seemed so small were life-sized now, sporting salt water weathered paint and windows that gleamed in the mid-morning light. A few people walked the street before them; a stumbling cluster of children younger than his daughter, a couple with a double wide stroller and a few elderly gentlemen taking seats at a small table on a building’s porch.

It was a little livelier than Darien, a little more wet and a great deal colder but the same small town, sleepy feel enveloped the McCoy family of two as their car eased onto the street.

This was what breathing felt like, with over three thousand miles of earth and ocean between them and their old life of bitter marsh mud scents and humid air sifting through swaying Spanish moss. Different people, a different environment. They were the strangers here, rather than sequestered in a town where everybody had gone to school with either Len or his Daddy. He felt like he understood then, understood the quiet expression his Mama used to get on her face when he was younger, because this was what she must have felt like in the small town with its boat clogged docks and slow paced moments.

Francisca McCoy, neé de la Vega, had been a stranger in a small town when she’d married his father, and that slightly out of body, peacefully isolated feeling he felt seemed familiar, if only from the expression on his brow that he recognized from her own.

“ _Daddy_.”

Her voice a breathless, a giddy whisper, Joanna drew him from his thoughts, and Len gave her a glance as they paused at the stop light. He hadn’t seen that grin on her face in days, hadn’t seen that kind of glee in twice as long, but he’d missed it all the same. Alaska was different, and bitter cold to his southern bones, but this would be good for them, for her. His Mama had never steered him wrong, had given him her word that she’d taken care of the details, she had a friend who could help, and that was good enough.

“Yeah, baby girl?”

“Yeah.”

Chuckling, Len shook his head at her.  Another block and a half of silence, Joanna with her face nearly pressed to the window and Len watching the numbers and names on the buildings they passed. The quiet was comfortable though, it settled between them with a softness that was only offset by the gentle murmur of Joanna’s questionably long, previously unused road trip playlist, because _everybody needs a road trip playlist Daddy, God_.

Address found, he eased the Highlander into a narrow alley, worried for his side mirrors for a minute before they crawled out to the other side of the building. A decent sized parking lot greeted them, dotted with a Chevy that had seen better days and a four door car that might have been blue at one point before the ocean water had other ideas. Jon Bellion warbled in the background about having broken pride and being at an all-time low, and Len put the SUV in park.

The vehicle had barely stopped moving, and Jo had thrown her door open, knees clacking together in a way that made him frown as she tossed herself from the car.

Moving at a more sedate pace, keys in one hand and his other scrubbing at the dark, full beard that curled over his jaw, Len stretched out of the car, shutting the door behind himself with a loud click. It rocked in place, jostled faintly by the slamming motion, and he winced even as he turned to look for his daughter. Already at the trunk, pulling at her over-sized, over-stuffed duffel by the soft leather strap, Jo nearly toppled herself over in her fervor. Len caught her with a hand against her back, returned her smile as she hoisted the bag up onto her shoulder, grabbing his own with one hand and shutting the trunk with the other.

“So, we…we’re up there?”

“Yeah, baby girl, we’re up there.”

Salt weathered brick and a nondescript beige door, and he pushed it open with a tentative twist. The air inside the little tack room was warmer, smelled less like salt and more like sugared yeast, and he caught the strap of Jo’s bag where it started to slip down her shoulder once more. Tightly enclosed stairs that creaked underfoot, but he bustled his daughter up them all the same, fishing out the note that had the address and instructions on it.

A little landing at the top of the stairs, barely more than two feet for a questionable sized stoop, and Len frowned. He had no key, not yet anyway, and hadn’t actually been informed on who to talk to to get one.

“Says it’ll be unlocked.”

“I can see that, Jo.”

Neither of them moved though, stagnant on the stoop and stairs, with a weeks’ worth of their lives on their shoulders and travel weary bones. The door that stared back at them was a dusty, mulberry shade of violet, paint a little scratched around the knob and scuffed on the bottom corner like a boot had shoved it open one too many times. No peephole, no identifying numbers, and it was the only apartment that the door led to.

Still, he didn’t move, brow furrowed and something wistful in his belly, stationary long enough for his girl to get impatient.

“Fuck this.”

“ _Joanna Isabelle_!”

She mocked him with her own name though, indignant tone for indignant tone, and wriggled by him onto the landing to twist open the door. It stuck slightly, and he watched as she forced her foot against the bottom corner while she pushed, and that explained the scuffed paint. It creaked open though, near silent apart from a groan from the frame in the last second, and then she was in the apartment. Well-worn and dusty from the gravel outside, her favorite boots made a thump on the hardwood flooring as she stumbled those first few steps in. Joanna caught herself though, and her footfalls became quieter, her mouth slack as she twisted to look around the place.

Len shut the door behind himself, and watched her inspection for a minute before starting his own. The door served as the dividing point between a kitchen that looked clean and polished, with sturdy counters and cabinets and a tall fridge, except the-

“Oh my _God_! Daddy, the kitchen’s _pink!_ ”

Delighted giggles, and Len couldn’t even find it in himself to scowl. The kitchen _was_ pink, with the stove, oven and fridge done in that soft, pearl rose Americana that had been popular back in the 1950’s, the counter tops complimentary in their sweet mint with crisp white trim. A delicate, soft, powder yellow cream was painted on the walls, accenting the pastel pop of the kitchen and the way that the cherry wood of the floor had taken a strange tint in its age.

The color didn’t seem content to stop there though; the pale yellow that made up the kitchen walls ran into a muted olive that spanned the open combination of the dining and living rooms, disappearing up the stairs that he could only see in profile.  _Stairs_ , there were stairs in his apartment, with a price tag that nobody had talked to him about and a monthly rent that he didn’t want to think about. What was the cost of utilities on an Alaskan island? How much did electric or gas or water end up costing, how much was _internet_? Waste removal, milk, bread, the possible cost of any necessary medication?

He was going to be sick.

Joanna didn’t notice his silent, internal crisis though, trailing her fingers over the circular edge of the simple dining room table. He could see her reflection in the glass of the great china cabinet, nearly as old looking as the one his Mama had, and he wondered how it had even fit up the stairs, and the gape mouthed expression on her face was enough to start to settle his pulse. A deep seated brown couch formed an impromptu walkway between it and the side of the stairs and a boxy, heavy looking television that looked like the type they’d had when he was growing up that he _knew_ she was going to complain about once she got comfortable. There were a few empty bookshelves, a water ringed coffee table, and a door on the left side of the far wall that he assumed led to a bathroom. A fair number of boxes were stacked about the room, as if they had simply been left wherever there was room.

Joanna didn’t bother to pause at the couch though, staring at the curtains that tried to consume a substantial portion of the wall, a shimmering of sunlight peeking through from the top and bottom of the fabric before she ignored that too. Twisting on her heel, fingers catching the railing first, Joanna hesitated on the first step, leaning back slightly to get a look through the open doorway situated at the foot of the stairs. It didn’t seem to be what she wanted though, because she tested her weight on the next step before slowly disappearing up to the next level.

He moved then, from the uncertain post he had taken by the dining table.

The couch looked tempting, but he passed it by, sweeping a finger over the top of the television to come away with a thin layer of dust. The apartment had been cleaned recently, at least within the week, and there was the faint scent of cleaner coming from the bathroom with a thin waft of lemon. He moved on slow feet, bones weary and his hands aching from having gripped the wheel for so long. A glance up the lit stairs, but Joanna couldn’t be seen, even if he could hear her moving around up there and, instead, Len pushed open the door before him so it creaked a little wider.

The room was wider than he had expected, L-shaped and painted in a muted, warm tan that reminded him of his father’s old study. An open archway in the far-right corner showed the closet, stuffed tight with boxes, and he frowned before deciding to ignore that for a moment. A look to the left then, around the corner in the room, and there was a large window that showed a view of the cool bay. From this angle, he could see the lighthouse standing sentry in the distance.

Dropping his bag on the bed, Len stared at the wall of boxes that had been stuffed into the closet, wide enough and questionably deep. He pulled at one of them, nearly wedged into the space and surprisingly heavy. Stumbling with it, nearly dropping it on the new burgundy blanket, the contents inside of it made him want to both laugh and groan.

“Damn it, Mama.”

He didn’t want to think of how much she had spent to get their clothes here before them and, worse, he didn’t recognize any of the sweaters or shirts in the box.

He didn’t even own a cardigan.

Laying the piece of clothing back in the box, haphazardly folded and warm looking, he cast his eyes upward. It was awfully quiet, suspiciously so, especially since his fourteen-year-old had disappeared up into the unknown part of the apartment. He couldn’t hear the faint sounds of her moving around anymore, not the scuff of her boots nor the creaking of her weight, and he frowned.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Len paused at the landing, peeking into the darkened bathroom before looking to the open space behind him. The hall wrapped around, going either left or right toward the road, but apart from the railing that surrounded the stairwell, there was only open air. He could see the doorway to the two bedrooms from here, boxes littering the wide walkway and scribbled with names in Rita’s familiar script. He turned, following the sight of cardboard with his little girl’s name scrawled across it, and leaned against the doorjamb of her new room.

It was brighter than he had expected, with a cool, slate gray paper on the walls and fluffy, plush rug on the floor in a delicate mauve. The thin, white line art pattern of fat bumble bees on the walls gave him pause, but the sight of his daughter curled up on her bed had him moving. Her boots had been kicked off on the floor, and her hands were fisted in the sleeves of her loose sweater with her face turned away from him, back pressed against the curved wall.

He took a moment to appreciate the way that her bed had been built lengthwise into the deep bay window before crawling onto the space beside her. The bedspread wrinkled under the pressure of his weight; new, the soft rosy tan in sharp contrast to the electric blue of the one she had back in Georgia, and Len toed off his own shoes so they clattered quietly on the floor. Thin shoulders drawn toward her ears and long arms wrapped around knobby knees, and as he watched, a fine tremble ran through her frame.

He let the silence sit though, turning his eyes from her to stare out her window.

The view was better than his, less of a view of the street and more of the docks and the water. He could see where the curve of the island seemed to disappear in the water, and from here, the lighthouse looked ever more resolute. A single guardian on the island, standing watch against the icy waters, and he let himself get lost in the distant cresting waves.

“Daddy?”

“Mhm?”

An affirmative sound, a quiet hum, and he listened to her stocking-clad feet swish quietly across the blanket. He waited though, a learned sort of silence that was familiar, and watched as she tried to collect herself.

She stared out the window still.

“Am I a monster?”

A wounded sound pulled from his chest, a heavy sigh, because there was a difference between expecting this kind of question and being confronted with it. His little girl was vivacious, sure of herself and her intelligence even if she was generally more reserved than other girls her age. This hesitance, this self-doubt, this shame, it was such a far cry from the self-assured young woman that he had raised, and he wanted to pull her close. There were tears clogging his throat, that same bitter tang that had been settled there for days, and the same weary weight in his bones that had been there just as long.

He held out his hand though, a half way point to the small distance between them, but he let the rest of it be up to her.

“No baby, you aren’t a monster. Ain’t no thing as monsters, remember?” The words were rehearsed, the same ones that he had told her those nights long ago when she had cried about a beast under her bed, a specter in her closet, effectively amusing the ghost that roamed the old home. “Some people are just different is all.”

“Mhm.”

Her thin fingers slotted into the spaces between his, skin far darker and her knuckles fine boned. He held on to the tether point between them, swept his thumb over the back of her palm and let her believe that he couldn’t hear the sound of her quietly crying over the patter of rain, giving her her privacy without making her be alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! So I'm being a bad writer, and I'm side stepping my beta because she's busy with life, and I've been stewing on this chapter for the last half a month. So, I figured I would just go ahead and post it without edits, and that we can go back and fix it later? So, this chapter is unbeta'd, and it's going to probably feel a little sticky, but there's not really much I can do about that. That being said, any typos aside, I would love feedback and to hear what you guys think on this story! It's super slow going, and I know that, but I do hope you enjoy it at least, because I'm writing it with you guys in mind.   
> So, without further ado, have the second chapter!

The sun had long reached its peak by the time they moved from their folded perches on her soft bed, and his fingers had long since cramped from where they were clasped around hers, but Len hadn’t dared take his hand away, not when she had reached out to him. 

So, he had held on with that same quiet patience, content to simply listen to the sound of her breathing and sit in the silence. She had cracked first, a quiet murmur of needing to wash her face, and she’d started to crawl past him only to pause. Joanna had stared at him then, with the moment hanging in a somber silence, and before Len could find the words to question her, he had had a lapful of long limbed daughter as she slid her arms around his neck. She had held on tight, nails digging into his shoulders and her body curled desperately against his, just long enough for him to hold her back. A single, sticky, cotton candy mint lip balm kiss pressed to his cheek, and she had clambered the rest of the way off the bed, leaving him alone to gather his sore emotions back to where they could settle deep, hidden from view. 

The outside air was full of frigid sea salt tang and bitingly crisp, but he could still smell the smoke of her hair, cloying in his lungs. 

Her arm had looped through his, with her new coat a little stiff and still full skirted, unblemished and pristine, a stark white that looked soft against her dusky skin. Her nails bit into the tight, chunky knit of his thick cardigan, picking slightly at the buttery leather elbow patch, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop. She was just as nervous as he, walking in a strange alley in a strange town, even if it was late morning, and he would give her whatever comfort she allowed without being suffocating. 

There had been a note on their door, half curled at the edges and pulled away from the wood like it didn’t necessarily want to stick, inviting them down to the bakery below for something to eat and the chance to meet their landlady. 

The note crumpled in his back pocket, Len guided his daughter out of the mouth of the alley and into the gleaming sun. Their boots crunched on the loose pieces of pavement, and there was a faint lip from street to sidewalk that she stumbled on. Laughter pulled from his belly, deep and resounding, and it was worth it for the offended pout Joanna tried to level him with once she’d straightened herself. The faint drizzle of rain hadn’t let up, made sharp by the biting mist of seawater, and in the few minutes it had taken them to round the building, her hair had crackled and coiled in quiet outrage. 

Somehow, Joanna didn’t seem to have noticed yet, and Len didn’t plan on being the one to tell her. 

The door opened with a slight stick, as if the frame had warped from all the sea water, a bell jangling overhead, and the sounds of the shop washed over them. Quiet chatter gusted out to meet them, carried by laughter and the sound of lively R&B spilling from the speaker system overhead. The air was sticky sweet with the smell of yeast and baking sugar, but it was coupled with the comforting, earthy smell of herbs that worked to chase away the chill in the air. High ceiling, exposed wooden rafters that were crowded and strung with garlands of various herbs and aged wooden counters that held a faint gleam, the floor was covered in a motley of eclectic, patchwork rugs in a hodgepodge of colors with no rhyme or reason in sight. The wide expanse of the room was fragmented further by broken in, questionably upholstered couches and chairs done in garish fabrics and colors, from a lime green, velvet wingback monstrosity to an occupied, quilted, periwinkle lounge that had seen better days. 

The door closed behind them with another quiet jangle, and yet he could still hear the sounds of the ocean behind them, lapping lazy and constant against the shore. 

“Leonard!”

A shimmering voice called out to them, dipped in laughter and love and just shy of nasally. A wisp of a woman stood behind the counter, full weight leaned onto it and her dark hair twisted up high on her head. Dark eyes and a bright smile that took over most of her face, the woman was waif-like with her thin shoulders and the sweet curl of loose hair about her throat. 

A wreath of lavender, mint, nettle and little, sunny yellow flowers that he knew to be the ragwort weed that his mother coveted sat like a crown on her dark head of hair. 

His little girl was quickly drawn in, fingers slipping from his arm and her boots clacking quietly on the floor as she swayed toward the counter. She stumbled slightly, far enough away that he couldn’t reach her even though he had followed, and instead, the soft, voluptuous woman leaning against the counter reached out for her. 

Joanna looked a touch too slender beside her soft frame, but she clutched at the woman’s forearms all the same to steady herself, and he could hear the quiet murmur of a smoke-slick voice. 

“Oh honey, you look  _ frozen _ .” With a low, sultry alto tone, the woman blinked heavy lidded eyes, her attention slipping from Jo to Len, and then back again. An unhappy pout pulled at her wide, full mouth, and she shifted, languid and slow where she stood even as she pulled Joanna closer. Surprisingly, his daughter went easily, wrapped up in the arms of a woman who seemed to be wearing at least four different layers of floral printed fabric and lace as well as a faded, loose, seafoam cardigan that almost trailed the floor. “You  _ are _ frozen, and your hair!”

“What about my hair?”

“Ny, baby, her  _ hair _ !”

“What about my hair!”

Her voice was slightly muffled, lost in the tumble of the woman’s fat, fiery curls, but he would have recognized that rattled, indignant tone from anywhere. 

It was strange, to see her particular brand of teenage petulance aimed at someone other than him for once. 

Ny, it turned out, was not the woman behind the bar, but the amazon with her eyes trained to her phone and a silk scarf doing its best to contain her tumbling, tight coil of mermaid dyed curls. Violet, deep blue and a soft, early white mint hue at the tips, evidently it paid to have nothing but women in his life, because Len admired the time it must have taken to dye all those curls. She didn’t give him a glance though, not at first, and instead, her dark eyes lifted to find the redhead and his child. 

Her rich, plum painted lips ticked into an indulgent smile, soft and full in the way he remembered seeing from his parents. 

“It’s twice as tall as you probably want it and frizzing.”

A loud, pitiful whine, and Joanna collapsed full body against the woman that held her, arms slack at her sides and her face lost in her copper hair. 

“Leonard then, right? And this-you’re Joanna?”

Flower Crown inquired, voice just as sweet and nasally as before. The coil of ivy and herbs on her head looked like it should be heavy, pushing her hair down and dusted slightly with flour, but she held it with a regal, familiar ease. She came to his shoulder, just barely, and her own were thin, hands delicate and small. 

“’Fraid you’ve got us at a disadvantage, Ma’am.”

Jo made a muffled grumble of agreement, but made no move to pull herself free.

The look she gave him spoke volumes about what she thought of his manners and just where his charm fell, but he knew how far it could generally get him, so Len kept his features light and his tone amiable. 

“Amanda Grayson, owner. I spoke with your mother last wee-well, technically Jimmy spoke with Rita, but between the two of them I got patched through to your mother by the end of it. Little irritated, but that’s what I get for letting Jimmy answer my phone when he’s around.”

A frown pulled at his lips and his brows, confused more than anything else.

“You know my Mama?”

“Sweet Mother of Mercy, Gaila, you’re making her hair worse, sto- _ Gaila _ .”

A glance, and the redhead- Gaila, handed a loose-limbed Jo over to Ny as the woman put her phone away. As he watched, her dark fingers made quick work of twisting her short, springy curls into some semblance of order, and his daughter leaned into the touch. 

“Course I know Franny.” His gaze cut back over at her huffy tone, but there was a soft smile on Amanda’s mouth, and she too watched Ny with his daughter before turning her eyes onto him once more. “I grew up eating chilaquiles off my fingers at your Abuela’s kitchen table long before your Daddy ever came to that conference, and I held you a lot when you were real little.”

A flail of motion from his right, and Len reached out with quick fingers to catch her hand before Jo could either accidentally smack somebody in her excitement, or ruin the clean up job on her hair. 

“You know my Abuela?”

“Grew up two houses down.”

A soft, gusty exhale pulled from her chest, and there was a worshipful look on her face that Len hadn’t seen in a while. 

“ _ But _ , anyway: sorted the details out with your Mama and got you all squared away. First two months everything has been dealt with as far as numbers go, don’t you look at me like that young man, and school don’t start back up from summer break for a few more months yet, but you can sort out all of that when the time comes.”

Her body turned away from him as she spoke, carried by the motions that she put herself through as she set to steaming milk and divvying out coffee grounds. A plethora of loose herbs and flowers went into a stout metal pitcher, pulled from various jars behind the counter, topped off with a portion of the steamed milk before she set that aside. A thick drizzle of honey in the milky coffee, and she gave it a harsh stir before passing the mug over to him. The remaining milk was strained quickly through a cheesecloth into another mug, given a swirl of honey from a different container, and she clucked her tongue until Joanna held her hands out for it. 

“Now, nobody’s going to expect the two of you to start makin’ rounds and chattin’ everybody up on your first day here, but we don’t get many visitors outside of fishing season and the weathers a little damp for tourists this year, so we-“

“We planned a party!”

“ _ Gaila _ .”

Amanda’s dark eyes rolled heavenward, and he could hear the quiet  _ tick tick tick _ of her short nails against the countertop. She looked expectant though, nearly indulgent, and the frustrated gap of her mouth was accompanied by the exasperated exhale that came from Ny. Both women seemed far too used to this sort of interruption, far from upset by it at least, and completely unaffected by the embarrassed flush that painted itself across the redheads pale features. 

Two generations of McCoy watched the exchange, steaming mugs clasped in their hands and their brows having climbed high on their foreheads. 

Some of the tension had left her shoulders though, and Len took that gift for what it was, reaching out to swipe his thumb across her upper lip where a moustache of flavored, sweetened milk had been left behind. Joanna’s dark eyes cut to him, her expression both confused and delighted all at once, and he gave her a quiet smile. She was still leaning into the touch in her hair, and as he watched, her eyes became heavy lidded and her mouth disappeared behind the raised rim of her drink. 

“We planned a get together. A lot of people are excited to meet you, we don't get many new residents around here, just tourists that spend most of their time on the water, in the preserve or at the lighthouse. There’ll be a lot of food, and a couple kids Joanna’s age as well as the boys that’ll be her teachers.” He was cut off before he could even speak, mouth left hanging open, and a kind but stern look upon Amanda’s sweet face left him feeling scolded for even wanting to try. “You don’t have to stay the entire time, and it’s not till tomorrow afternoon, so you’ve got some time to settle in. Just come for a little bit?”

Her tone, hopeful and questioning and just a little bit tired, the voice was wrong, but he had known it his entire life from his Mama. It seemed he was just as powerless against it from Amanda as he was from Franny, because Len felt himself nodding along to her in answer. The curving smile she gave him in reward was just like Franny’s too, and he only hoped he didn’t have to deal with the two women in the same room for some time yet. 

“Good, now, the weathe-”

There was a clamoring, metallic tinged crash from behind the staff door, and a slurring, guttural yelling came forth, muffled by the door but enraged all the same. 

“Vaska?”

“ _ Vaska _ !”

Gaila’s voice held concern, and her pale hands pressed to the counter, lifting herself a bit to see toward the door while Amanda pressed a hand over her eyes, twisting on her heel. The door opened to her touch, the hinge loose and easy, and the bit of kitchen he could see was filled with tall carts of various pastries and three wide, double decker ovens. Before them stood a sharp jawed young man, mid twenties at most, with flour covering his front and raw egg dripping from his hair. His eyes were like knives even from a distance, cutting and angry, but the sound Amanda made was soft and sympathetic.

“Vaska, honey, this is the third time this week. Does your alp-”

The door swung shut behind her, and Len was left to stare at it for a moment. 

There was the delicate sound of a throat being cleared from beside him, and when he looked over, the expression on Ny’s face was unreadable, her large, dark eyes calculating and sharp. He busied himself with a drink of his coffee, unwilling to be cowed by a woman he didn’t know but embarrassed for rubber necking all the same. She had finished her work on Joanna’s hair, and instead, his daughter had buried herself in her mug of milk, slouched against the counter beside Gaila. 

“Nyota Grayson, Mayor of Queenswich. We take care of all the legalities for new movers in my office, but your change of address forms have already been filled and are just waiting for a signature. Post office and the bank are also housed in Town Hall, and we can give you a tour of town sometime if you’d like.”

Her face softened then, mouth turning into another smile, and she placed a firm hand on his shoulder. With her dyed hair, head scarf and off the shoulder, loose shirt, she was probably the least professional politician he had ever seen in person, and the smile Len gave her in return was genuine. 

“Or we can just let you have an adventure out of it!”

A quiet laugh, and her lips pursed, as if attempting to contain her composure as Gaila let out an excited sigh, hands thrown in the air.

“You haven’t necessarily been introduced, but this is my wife, Gaila. Our husband is out in the preserve somewhere. We had a minor tremor a few days back, and he’s absolutely fascinated with the effects.”

“Actually, Spock licked a new rock bout fi...fifteenish? Minutes ago?” Clutched in one hand was her phone, and Gaila had a delighted grin on her face, as if the prospect of her husband licking a rock was a good thing. “He said he can’t feel his tongue, and is hiking back.”

“He licked a rock?” 

“ _ Joanna Isabella _ .”

Tone garbled around a mouthful of milk, Jo blinked large, dark eyes at the two women, something mystified within her expression. He shot her a quick scowl, just enough to shame her, and he knew his daughter well enough to recognize the embarrassed flush that bloomed across her dark cheeks. She narrowed her eyes at him though, a quiet challenge even as she remembered her manners, and he felt the usual spike of amusement that came in response to her quiet spite. 

“Spock is-

“Dreamy.”

“ _ Different _ .” Tone conversational, Nyota corrected her wife as if the woman hadn’t been interrupted in the first place. Beside her, Gaila looked proud of herself, soft smile aimed at Joanna even as his daughter took another mouthful of her drink. It would stick to her ribs, hopefully, give her a little body fat where she needed a lot. “Spock is different, but he’s good people. Call me biased, but most of our residents are good people. There’s a few grumps,”

“Etienne.” 

“But even they’re good people when it comes down too it.”

They spoke in the kind of tandem that came with years of experience, and Len watched the two with a quiet smile. It was like listening to his parents all over again, his Daddy cutting in while his Mama talked about how her day had gone with details that he already knew. The only things missing were his sisters squabbling in the background and the smell pozole simmering on the stove. 

“Is there anybody specific we should go introduce ourse-”

“Grandma!”

The crackling sort of boom of a young man on the very tail end of puberty, the voice that cried out went in time with the door being thrown open, bell chiming wildly. Turning quickly, Len caught sight of the youth that had thrown himself into the cafe, all sharp jaw and a light grey slouch beanie pulled over honey blonde hair. Wild eyed and flushed from the ocean bite, the young man looked out of breath, panting even as he nearly jogged to the counter. 

“Walk!”

Amanda’s voice called from the kitchen, slightly muffled but there all the same. The woman didn’t come back out though, not even as the boy came to a stop next to the counter, and instead, Gaila gathered him to her chest. He was taller than her, lithe muscled and freckle skinned where she was soft and pale, and he sagged heavy against her, face pressed into her shoulder. Unlike Jo, his arms went around her waist, and he held on like the fiery haired woman was the lifeline that he’s been searching for. 

A long, low groan carried through the air, pulled from his throat with a quiet rumble. 

Two pairs of black eyes watched them from a pale blue armchair stuffed into the corner, two young men curled around each other until their legs were intertwined, shoulders pressed tight together. Glossy heads of black hair pressed together, there was a single cup of a steaming beverage between them, and though he had only caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of his eye, it took longer than he would have liked to look away. There was something predatory about them, even wrapped together and swathed in soft seeming sweaters, something sharp on their pale faces. 

“Rio, Rio, hey, what’s up?”

Another groan answered Gaila’s soft question, drawing his eyes away from their consuming stares to instead find his recent friend group. Jo was wide eyed, highly amused by the arch of her brows and the scrunch in her forehead, and he reached out. A simple touch to her shoulder was enough to have her burrowing into his side, tucked beneath his arm like she belonged there- she was almost too tall for this, almost didn’t fit with her head against his chest. She was turning out to be all leg, and he had a feeling they were going to be long legs by the time this was all said and done. 

“I need food. Dad was on a bender last night, and I’m hungry, but I’m not-”

“Allowed to touch the stove until its fixed, yeah. What do you mean Jim was on a bender?”

Face still pressed into Gaila’s shoulder, the boy, Rio, threw both his hands in the air, narrowly avoiding her nose. There was an unintelligible grumble, a sound that he didn’t understand, but the Grayson women seemed to, for Gaila’s fingers scratched through the short hairs at the base of his neck in soothing motions while Ny rolled her eyes. 

“ _ Orion _ .”

“I don’t  _ know _ . He was talking about-about lunar phases and cosmic anomalies and numbers. Numbers! I’m a potters assistant, you can’t expect me to recognize numbers, aunt Ny, you just  _ can’t _ .”

A snort, laughter that he couldn’t control, and the expression Nyota gave him was flat and exasperated. He hid his smile in his daughters hair, Jo too busy watching the obviously familial exchange before them to give much care. Plum painted lips pursing, the woman huffed, managing to make the sound both irritated and dignified all at once before turning her attention back to the groaning teen.

“You have manners, Rio, use them.”

Steely blue eyes found him then, peeking out through the tumble of Gaila’s wild curls, and the boy stared for a long minute before straightening. His height was impressive, just shy of being level with Len himself, and his shoulders were nearly as broad. A smathering of freckles lay across his cheeks, more sun kissed than anything else, and such was an odd notion in Alaska of all places. 

“Rio Kirk, Keeper’s son.”

His grip was strong and his fingertips were bandaged, a few knuckles wrapped, and he was young by the faint round of his cheeks and the timber of his voice. 

“Leonard McCoy, this is my daughter Joanna.”

“What’s a Keeper?”

His face lost some of its sharp then, if only just, and Rio tipped his head to look down at Jo where she stood, still pressed back against Len’s chest. Her chin was tilted, posture a little proud, but her hands were still clamped around the mostly empty mug of milk and her hair was a soft cloud against the side of his face. 

“Lighthouse Keeper. My Dad keeps the big fat bulb in the tower spinning, but he’s an astronomer at heart. Should go see him sometime, poor bastard could do with a new face, Mother knows I can’t get him out of his own head half the time.” A shrug, and the young man pulled his hat off his head, stuffed it in the pocket of his worn looking jeans as best he could. “Anyway, I’m going to go steal something from my Grandma, I hear an angry Russian, should give me a few minutes of stealth time.”

He darted around the counter then, ignored the exasperated sigh of his name that Nyota gave, and the woman pressed a hand to her face as the employee doors swung shut behind him. 

“Jim, to answer your question. Jim’s a good guy to go see, he knows everybody on the island, and he can point you in the right direction for absolutely everything. He’s in the lighthouse at the far end of Killdeere, you honestly can’t miss it.”

“Spock’s at his car.”

“Which means  _ we _ need to be getting home so we can meet him. There’s a phone book upstairs, homemade thing that Amanda threw together, it’s got all our contact information in it for, well, everybody. Feel free to dial if you have any questions, it was a pleasure to meet you both.”

“Stay dry!”

Hand in hand, the women swept out of the cafe, leaving the two McCoy’s standing stranded in their wake. The cafe was quiet around then, as quiet as it could be with the crooning of R&B from up above and murmuring in a language he didn’t understand from the two in the far corner. Someone slumbered on the periwinkle piece, blonde hair trailing to the floor, and with their mugs left on the counter, Len took the lack of peoples trying to talk to them as an excuse to ease his daughter toward the door. 

She went easily, easier than he had anticipated, boot clad feet making dull sounds on the hardwood flooring, and the air outside was still bitter and damp. An unhappy sound came from her unpainted lips, and Joanna rummaged through her pockets for a moment, pulling free a silk scarf that he watched her make quick work of wrapping around her hair. 

“They were weird.”

A startled bark of a laugh, and he didn’t even have the heart to scold her for her choice in vocabulary. It was a true enough statement, even if it could have been said with a little more tact, and he tucked the edges of the scarf in where they peeked out, fixing it for her where she couldn’t see. 

“You think most people are weird, June bug.”

A pout, her tongue flashing out in a show of insolence, but she hooked her hand through the crook of his elbow, pulling him along in the direction of the alley once more. There was a lack of tension in her bones that had been there for what seemed like days, as if another bit of stress had peeled away from her skin. The smell of ash and burning filled his lungs, mixed with the crisp bite of ocean air, but he would take what he could get. 

“I think I’ll like it here.”

“Yeah?”

Her smile was brilliant, unreserved and free, if a little hesitant, and he held it close to his heart. He wanted to kiss her forehead, wanted to hold her little fingers between his and listen to her talk for hours. But his baby wasn’t a baby anymore, wasn’t so small that she always needed her Daddy, not as much as he needed her. 

This move would do them both some good. 

“Yeah.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite warnings that updates would be slow, I still feel bad? But I'm busy up to my ears, and I promise I'm going to try to get the next chapter up sooner than this one was, but it might take me a few yet~ Unbeta'd, bc I love my darling, but I think she's super busy too at the moment? All mistakes are mine

Killdeere, it turned out, was actually the main drag on the island, the road that they had come in on. It ran the length of Queenswich, if the map that had been held to their fridge with a little whale shaped magnet was to be believed. A full loop all the way to the edge of the Preserve, and most roads lead to it one way or another, something that his strangers bones were thankful for. 

Jo had tucked herself into the Highlander once more, long legs folded up in her seat despite the way that he had told her not to, fists stuffed loosely into the gap between her legs. Her dark eyes curious, she had tapped a button on her phone to pull up her faithful playlist before turning her attention outside to the world that passed them slowly. On one side, buildings turned into houses, with space between them, yards and fences in the distances in between, damp looking lawns and surfaces that were sun bleached and salt-water crusted. The other, there was nothing but ocean, stretching out as far as he could see, and Len held them at a pause at a stop sign just to get a look. 

“Daddy.”

A grunt, quiet and expectant, and he let off the brake, eased back into a drive on the empty road. In the distance, he could see the lighthouse, towering above the trees and glimmering in the drizzling, rainy sunshine. Where he had grown accustomed the the spiraling, striped ones that dotted the coastline of home, this tower was different, undecorated and simple in comparison, almost delicate looking in color. 

He had never seen a manned one though, the Atlantic didn’t need that sort of thing anymore, not with satellite and sonar and fancy things that he didn’t know the names of and didn’t understand. They were relics of the past, of a time less advanced, and he knew them for their strange shape as much as he did their history, but Len would admit that he knew next to nothing at all. 

Joanna seemed fascinated though, leaned forward in her seat until her arms had folded on the dash, body stretched at a strange angle in her seat. Her eyes were glossy in his peripheral as she watched the world go by, different trees than what they were used to, a different sort of gloom in the sky. This was no humid heat, these trees didn’t drip with Spanish moss, but she seemed enraptured all the same. 

“Abuela really thinks that this place’ll help?”

A mumbling, mealy mouthed tone, words garbled between her teeth and lips, and he gave his little girl a glance. She was intent on the world outside though, the foreign trees and the air that looked cold, left a damp film on the windshield before the wipers swept it away. She’d gotten good at avoidance during their trip, on how to talk to him and give her attention without giving it all, and he wasn’t sure that he liked that.

“Your tia Rita, actually. Said this was  _ el asilo _ . Rattled on about magic in the water and fire in the sky,  _ bruja _ that held life itself.”

She snorted, gave him her full attention then. Unamusement on her fine boned face, in the pull of her brows and the press of her lips, and she pillowed her head on her forearms. A flash of her teeth as she chewed on her cheek, and Joanna narrowed her eyes on him, gave a pouting, disbelieving frown. 

“Sanctuary? Witches, okay, yes, I can’t argue that, but  _ sanctuary _ ?” Her fingers twirled in the air, towards the trees that were strange and the sky that was different, the icy ocean on their left. “This don’t look like  _ el asilo _ , Daddy, this looks like hell.”

A sputtering laugh, and though his attention was on the road, Len gave her a fond, exasperated smile. She had come back to herself it seemed though, sass and petulence all bundled up in too long limbs and a thin, sharp ribcage. Quiet fire, she had always been quiet, but he had never not known the insolent bite of his daughter's tongue, and it was good to see her acting normal once more. 

“This isn’t hell, Joanna. It’s Alaska.”

“ _ El infierno _ .”

A whisper through the car, voice nothing more than a superstitious mumble, and he rolled his eyes at her antics. 

“Joanna Isabella.”

“ _ Joanna Isabella _ .”

It was going to be like that then. Her voice was a trilling, quiet mockery of his own, a little nasally and a little high, and he took the stop sign as a chance to roll his gaze heavenward, to send up a prayer for patience that he already had in spades. She was only going to get worse as she got older, and he knew that, but he wasn’t sure which would be the death of him first, her finishing puberty or her unflappable sass. 

A turn in the road, and their gradual uphill drive came upon a new sort of silence as the trees ended. Suddenly, the world around them was a plateau above the cresting waves, and the lighthouse loomed before them in its shining splendor. There was a home attached to the tall spire, a humble two story, with shutters on the windows that actually looked functional and a rounded door that was painted a vibrant peach, of all the colors. 

The drive met the road at a curve, and he took it at a near crawl, pavement smooth beneath their wheels. It swept up toward the house then, let out into a little lot with sectioned spaces with weathered yellow lines, and he pulled into one of them near the door. She hesitated this time, didn’t throw herself out of the car with the same force that she had at the apartment, and instead, her door creaked open with a long metallic sound. By the time he had the keys in hand, Joanna had undone her belt, and swung her legs out toward the cement even though she didn’t exit the vehicle. 

“June bug?”

She pulled herself from the vehicle then, fingertips testing the hold of her head scarf, and he could hear the sound of her boots in a puddle. Her back was to him still, but that seemed to be what she’d needed, a push that he hadn’t meant to give, and she was out in the open once more. There was a bitter bite to the breeze, moreso without any of the buildings or the trees at the bakery, and it ruffled the full skirt of her coat even as it pulled at the thick knit of his cardigan. He watched her over the roof of the car, the way she tipped her head back and seemed to take large lungfuls of the cold, salty air. 

Another call of her name was lost on his lips when she bound around the front of the vehicle, passed him to stomp wet feet across the parking lot. There was a look of rapture on her face, fleeting as his glimpse of her profile had been, and Len twisted to watch her as Joanna propelled herself across the lot. Her feet stamped on the pavement, boots splashing through puddles as she went, and by the time he shut his door, she had found the grass of the lawn, slipping a little as she hurried across it too. 

“Joanna!”

She threw a hand out toward him, a sign that she had heard even though she didn’t stop, and he saw her goal then. The lawns edge, the cut where it finally gave way to the cliff that fell to the ocean below, and he pushed away from the Highlander to chase after her. Lungfuls of chilled, biting air, a mist of diamond rain on his skin, and the grass was slick beneath his own feet, causing him to skid slightly against the lawn. There was a pounding of his heart in his chest, a thunderous  _ thump thump thump _ that echoed across his skin, and Len didn’t pause even when she did, maybe ten yards between herself and the cliff side. 

Her face was upturned, and his lungs burned from the force with which he had chased her, and Len caught up to her with desperate fingers that wanted to reach for his daughter and enough self control that he kept his hands to himself. 

“Joanna Isabella, you can’t just-”

“Daddy,  _ look _ .”

That same rapturous expression, a reverent tone to her voice, and there was a hush to her words, a quiet in the way that she spoke. Scowling, still heaving in lungfuls of cold, biting air, Len stared at his daughter for a minute, just to placate his racing heart and the tumble of anxiety in his veins. She was fine though, as fine as he could ask for, damp from the rain and wrapped up in her coat, and it was only then that he followed her gaze.

The ocean before them seemed to stretch on forever, an endless spread of white tipped waves that went on and on and on. The sun had risen high overhead, and a bright glint came from the water, turning the churning waves a dark, bottomless blue. From below them, he could just barely hear the sounds of the water crashing into the cliff face, but he could only stare out at the vastness of the world before them. Breath caught in his chest, a soft ache pulsed in his bones, a want for a home that he had a feeling he couldn’t return to and Len reached out then to put a hand on her shoulder.

From one shuddering breath to the next, the contact of his hand to her coat never came, the silence that had settled over them broken by the booming crack of a dog barking. A scream from his little girl, and the gentle touch that he intended became a grasp, Len swinging them about until she was behind him. In the flurry, either from her screaming or from her panic, it took him a second longer than it should have to realize that a spiral of grass around them had gone up in towering flames. 

Heat licked at his skin, his sweater suddenly too hot and the air crackling around them. There was nowhere to hide her then, nowhere that he could put her where Joanna wouldn’t be near the flames, and though they were of her own creation, he knew that she had no control. A swear on his tongue and desperation in his blood, there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and her nails bit into his arm while her screaming sounded in his ears.

Just as quickly as it had come, the fire disappeared, curling in on itself in a quick flash of heat and light until nothing remained. Not a single blade of scorched grass, not a bit of heat or ash in the air, and there was rain on his skin once more in a fine beaded mist, a trembling daughter to his back.

“How bout we  _ don’t _ set my yard on fire, yeah?”

Standing barefoot in the grass, as if unaffected by the cold and the rain stood a man with wide shoulders and a sloppy, tumbling knot of golden blond at the back of his head. A dark green and grey flannel buttoned up to his throat and cuffed at his wrists, his arms were crossed over his chest, a curious expression on his face. As if his yard hadn’t been in flames, as if there hadn’t been panicked screaming in the air, and instead, he simply watched them, as if this sort of situation was a common occurrence. 

“What the  _ fuck _ !”

He didn’t have the heart to scold his daughter for her language, not then, not when he could feel her trembling behind him, and instead, Len wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulled her to his chest until she had somewhere to cling. All the while, his gaze didn’t leave the other man where he stood a few feet away, the bottom cuffs of his jeans dark with moisture and a large rottweiler sitting at his side, tongue lolling out of one side of her mouth.

“Your control is shit, but I was warned about that. You didn’t level my house though, or destroy anything, so really, that’s a win in my book.” As if such a topic was normal, as if turning his back on complete strangers was safe, the man twisted around on bare feet to start toward the peach door where it stood open. The dog instantly followed, her little nub of a tail wagging as best it could as she kept pace with him. “Inside we go, McCoy’s, heaven help me if the two of you get sick on your first day on the island.”

“ _ Daddy _ .”

Face pressed into his shoulder, Joanna’s voice was quiet, muffled and just barely audible over the roar that remained in his ears. Still, swallowing, Len clutched his daughter against him, took a breath before pressing his mouth to her forehead in a comforting kiss, though it was difficult to tell just which one of them the motion was meant to sooth. 

“Yeah. C’mon June bug, lets...lets go inside.”

She was hesitant, he could nearly feel the want she had to dig her heels in, but Len eased her forward with a gentle pressure on her shoulder. This man knew them, had saved them even if Len didn’t understand quite how, and he was only left to assume that this was Jim, this was the Keeper they were supposed to have found. Mission accomplished, but all he wanted to do was bundle them back into the car and speed back to their new apartment. 

Fuck his manners and the social grace that his parents had bred into his bones, he didn’t want anything to do with even the notion of being civil. They had made it this far, a little more running wouldn’t kill them, a little more distance wouldn’t do them any harm. Except, that wasn’t the example he wanted to set, that wasn’t behavior he wanted to encourage with his daughter, so Len pushed them both forward with a nauseating, icy curdle of anxiety in his belly.

Though nothing more than a covered, shallow concrete stoop, the porch was dry with a place to wipe their shoes to chase away some of the mud they had accumulated. The door had been left open, rounded at the top with a curling, decorative glass pane running through the center of it, streaked with fingerprints that shown in the light. It closed behind them with a quiet click, and the inside of the home was warm, inviting with its wooden floors and its cobbled stone fireplace. Scuffs on the floorboards, as if skidded across by shoes day in and day out, and a staircase that crawled up the wall to their right with a banister that looked worn smooth with age. 

Lived in from the tumble of shoes by the door and the coats peeking out of the little closet, and there were a series of quiet  _ tick tick tick _ sounds of claws scurrying across the floors before a short legged, peculiar looking dog trotted around the corner. A miniaturized wolf dog, as if someone had taken its body and compressed it to the size of a rather put out looking corgi stopped a few feet away from them, it’s black nose twitching and its dark eyes shrewd. Beside him, Joanna made a quiet, strangled sound, and he could see her fingers twitch with a want to reach out and touch.

As if in answer, the dog gave a grumbling  _ boof _ , rocking on its front feet before turning and trotting back the way it had come.

“Oh, they pass inspection, did they? High praise, Commander, I must say that I’m rather impressed. Did you leave our guests out in the foyer, or did you actually use your manners this time?”

“ _ Boof _ .”

“That’s rude, you know better than that. I really am ashamed of you.”

Another series of clicks, and the little dog poked around the corner once more, looking just as put upon as he had the first time. This time however, he closed the distance between them, and Len watched with an amused smile as Joanna made another pained sound, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her coat. The little dog stood less than a foot from them, head bobbing between them before he gave another gruff barking sound, turning and leading back around the corner. 

“ _ Daddy _ .”

“Go, June bug, you can’t stand a gentleman up like that, it‘s very unbecoming.”

She glared at him, a near pout, but it had the desired effect all the same as she pushed away from the door with heavy footfalls, effectively stomping in her boots as she moved. Along the path beside the stairs, he followed behind her with a curious look at their surroundings, and Joanna got around the corner first while he paused with a small pang of post-adrenaline exhaustion at the sight of a rather comfortable looking suede sectional. It held a certain appeal, the thought of dropping himself onto the couch and letting his problems wait, but Jo was in there, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t just let her do that on her own. So Len heaved a sigh, and leaned against the doorframe for the kitchen to watch his little girl instead where she stood thin and almost pained in her want to pet the short dog. 

“Commander doesn’t bite, promise, he’s just a crotchety old man.” His hair was sloppy and there were half-moon bruises pressed beneath his eyes, but Jim didn’t seem bothered by either. Instead, his motions were fluid as he filled a fat bellied, red tea kettle with water from the tap before setting it on the stove. A twist of a knob, but it didn’t click on, and he frowned down at it for a second before sighing, pulling the kettle away and instead setting it on a hot plate next to the sink, the hollow sound of water sloshing within its metal confines filling the air. “But I’ve got a feeling you didn’t come here to talk about my dogs.”

Plural, as in more than one, presumably more than just the rottweiler they had seen outside and the gruff dog that stood idle in the kitchen, and Len saw that way that Jo latched onto that distinct word, and he would have sighed had he not been so started. For Jim gave them a mega-watt smile over his shoulder while the door to a cabinet above his head creaked open, and three mugs slipped out of the space and drifted down onto the table with nothing more than quiet thunks when they landed, safe and unshattered. 

“ _ Holy shit _ .”

“Joanna.”

An absent minded scolding, too caught up in the way that Jim’s kitchen came alive around them, an old fashioned tea tin shooting out of the pantry to land with a wobble on the table, a big bag of sugar following it at a more sedate pace. A spoon came from what must have been the silverware drawer, a container of milk from the fridge, and suddenly, he felt the need to sit down even though he had just moved to stand beside his daughter. A scuttling sound, and there was a chair behind him from where it had dragged itself over from the table, and this, this must have been what Belle felt like when confronted with a magical, animated palace. 

He was going to need a drink if the dog started talking.

Strangled sound in his throat and his eyes wide, Len fell into the chair, caught the way that Jim’s teeth pressed into his lower lip as he tried to keep himself from smiling. At his feet, Commander looked bored, as if such a scene was a common occurrence even as all the necessities to make tea arranged themselves at three distinct spots at the table, and part of Len wished he had just stayed at the couch instead. 

“Good luck with that. I’ve never really known that tone to work, but I do have a boy, and Rio might look well behaved, but don’t let him fool you. It’s the eyes, they just suck people right in, and then before you know it you’re agreeing to letting him go to Portland for three days unsupervised and praying to every deity you know that he doesn’t end up arrested, drugged or stumbled into prostitution.”

“What?”

His grin was softer then, less of that bright pull it had been but less restrained than his attempt at concealing it, and Jim plucked the kettle off the hot plate just as it started to whistle, padding on bare feet across the kitchen to pour a healthy amount of boiling water into each of the empty mugs. 

“Teenagers, McCoy. You can’t really win, they just let you think you can. You’re better trying to bargain with them than using a totalitarian authority approach, less likely to cause screaming, slamming doors and any variety of none household friendly destruction, accidental or not.”

A faint grumble to his voice, tone matter of fact and exasperated in a way that spoke of knowing, that spoke of experience, and he watched as Jim nudged Joanna forward toward a chair with a quick touch between her shoulders before he put the kettle on the broken stove presumably out of habit. She went easy enough though, a glance over her shoulder to watch the blond man as he moved, but she sank into a chair all the same with her usual lack of grace.

That seemed good enough for Jim, who then pulled a large tin off of the shelf, rattling it a bit before pulling off the lid. 

Already in the kitchen, Commander didn’t do much other than pull himself back to his feet so that he could sit in front of Jim’s, but two heavy sets of paws sounded from various points in the house. Sure enough, not a moment later the rottweiler from earlier trotted in from a room off the kitchen, her muzzle dripping with water and a wag to her little nub of a tail. A more resounding set of footfalls, quicker and less coordinated, and a long haired, monster of a dog stumbled into the kitchen, tongue lolling out of a wide open mouth and large, dark eyes intent on Jim where he stood. All three sat before him with their eyes stuck fast to the tin that he held, and with a grin, Jim pulled free three long sticks that resembled jerky.

Instead of handing them off, he crossed the kitchen to hold them out to Joanna, who took them after a moment of hesitance. None of the dogs moved though, not apart from turns of their heads to watch the exchange and the swishing of tails. Once he was sure Joanna had them, he screwed the lid back on the tin, setting it on the table while taking one of the remaining chairs for himself. 

“Do I just...?”

“Letha, Commander and Georgie, they won’t come until you tell them to, and then make them sit if they don’t already. Commander gets a little eager with his teeth, but he doesn’t have many and he won’t actually bite. Vallhund’s are pretty mild mannered, he’s just grumpy and old.”

A nod, and Len couldn’t help a smile at the way that his daughter turned enough to face the dogs, took one of the jerky sticks in her other hand before clearing her throat. 

“Commander, come.”

Just like that, the strange little dog came forward, waddling until he could sit in front of Joanna’s feet. His breath was a huff, his face long and his jowls loose, and Commander gave a grumble of sound as he waited for his treat. Held out to him then, he took it with a snap of his teeth, as much of the stick as he could manage shoved into his mouth before turning and disappearing out of the room with it nearly dragging the floor. 

“Letha, come.”

A puppy by the way that she bounded from her spot near the sink, nearly vibrating with energy. Large paws and long haired, her tongue didn’t seem to fit in her mouth, and the beast of a dog pressed forward until her nose bumped Joanna’s elbow. A tisking sound, and his daughter lifted her arm into the air, giving the dog a glare that he had seen one too many times from his own mother and sisters. 

“Sit.”

A low whine, as if the dog wanted to object, but she sat with a heavy thud on the kitchen floor, shifting her weight from paw to paw in impatience. The treat was barely held out before she tried to lunge forward, and anything Len wanted to say was lost under the loud, scolding sound that came from Jim’s throat. Ears pulled back, Letha fell back onto her haunches, watching the treat but not taking it until it was held out to her for a long moment. 

“Go on Le, take it.”

Approval seemed to be all she needed, for the dog took the treat and scrambled back over to lay in front of the sink, chewing readily on the jerky. 

“Georgie, come?”

A shuffle as she got to her feet, but the rottweiler seemed to be in no rush. Instead, she moved across the kitchen at a sedate pace, and Jim seemed less than concerned, ignoring them to instead start to doctor his tea. A spoon of sugar, stirred slowly just as Georgie sat at his daughter’s feet, but when the treat was offered to her, Len watched how she instead turned her head to Jim. 

He didn’t look back, instead taking the carton of milk and twisting the cap off, ignoring the dog even as he spoke to Jo in a soft, conversational tone. 

“Talk to her.”

Like she was a child rather than a dog, like she was asking permission from a parent for a treat who wanted to see what she would do, and both McCoy’s stared back at the patient dog where she sat on the floor. Warm brown eyes flickered between them to Jim once more, only to find Joanna when he continued to ignore her for his tea. 

“You’re a good girl Georgie, you can have it.”

His daughter's voice was quiet, reverent, and he realized then that this was the first time she had ever been close to a dog like this. There was a faint tremble to her hands, but Len couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or excitement, and he watched with bated breath as the rottweiler delicately nudged the jerky stick with her nose until it was out of her face to instead settle her large head in Joanna’s lap.

“ _ Oh _ .”

“Good girl, Georgie. Set it on your thigh, she’ll take it when she’s ready.” A sip from his mug, and then in a gentle suggestion, as if in afterthought, Jim gave Jo a smile. “She wants you to pet her.” 

It wasn’t until his daughter did just that, tracing her fingertips across the slope of the dogs nose and her brows that Len turned to his own tea and the man who sat across from him. 

“You don’t seem surprised to see us, Mr Kirk.”

A scrunching of his nose, and Jim hid his frown behind the lip of his mug. A splash of milk into his own cup, and three spoons of sugar into Joanna’s, and Len watched as he set the mug down on the table with a quick  _ clank _ . It was a little lopsided, taller on one side and a little uneven around the base, as if hand made, and a quick inspection showed that theirs were much in the same, imperfect in a way that spoke of uncertain hands. 

“It’s Jim. I’m lead to believe that Mr Kirk was my father, and I like to think I’m not old enough to quantify the Mister part yet anyway.” A wink, crystal blue eyes bright and a thick strand of blond doing its best to fall free from its confining knot, Jim did indeed look old enough to quantify the title, if only just. He was a striking man, a strong cut to his jaw and full lips, and were Len a younger man, were he not a single father, he- “But no, I’m not surprised.”

A dangerous train of though, particularly with his daughter between them, even distracted as she was, and Len crossed his legs beneath the table. 

“I’m friends with Rita, more of a friend of a friend sort of thing through our mothers, but friendly enough that she likes to bombard my phone with pictures in the middle of the night because the time difference doesn’t seem to register. It also seems to mean I’m doomed, because somewhere along the way I must have agreed to a reading of some type, because her tarot cards and I have a love-hate relationship.”

“You know my sister?”

A gruff quality to his voice, but Jim didn’t seem to take offense, watching Len instead with those bright eyes and something old in his gaze, something deep and daunting and otherworldly. He was nothing more than a man, nothing more than a father by the sounds of it, and yet, that wasn’t true, was it? No, not for the way that the milk carton lifted itself off of the table, floating back into the fridge before that door fell shut with a click, Jim never once breaking his gaze. 

He was power, he was a crackle of magic that Len could feel in the back of his throat and at the base of his skull, and he had the strangest urge to touch just as much as he did to avert his eyes. 

“I know a lot of things, Leonard. I know how Rita shuffles her tarot deck when she’s anxious, and I know that Solana goes to meetings at the VA every week as part of her PTSD counseling from when she served. I know that I haven’t slept in two days, that you took the scenic route to get here, that my son is going to be driving my Mom out of her mind right about now, but more importantly?”

A tilt of his head, and his gaze fell from Len to Joanna where her attention was only partially held by the dog leaning on her. Instead, her dark eyes watched him, heavy lashed and narrowed, her pouting mouth twisted up into a tight pinch, as if bracing herself for whatever he was about to say.

“I know that Joanna here is absolutely terrified of her new magic, and I know how to help. I know a thing or two about being scared, especially of yourself.”

Silence, quiet and quick in the kitchen, apart from Letha chewing over by the sink and the sound of rain on the window. Tongue thick between his teeth, words lost in his throat, Len couldn’t find something to say to even try to protect his little girl then, didn’t know whether he should be insulted or impressed, but Jo seemed to be a step ahead of him. 

“You can help me?”

Serious in the set of his brow and the line of his mouth, Jim gave her his full attention. As if what she said mattered, as if Joanna’s word was law, and it seemed that it was. There was a power in validation, in consent, and it was impossible to miss the weight in his words when he spoke to her.

“Only if you want me to.”

A quiver to her shoulders, and her fingers curled into the fur around Georgie’s throat. In response, the dog simply gave a sigh, eyes falling shut and her body pressing closer to Joanna’s as if to offer comfort. Jim gave her a smile, both encouraging and sincere all at once, and Len didn’t know whether to be grateful or if he wanted to hate the other man for being able to give his daughter something that he himself hadn’t been able to.

“Please?”

“You only ever have to ask.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! I literally just finished writing this, so I'm sorry for any errors because this is so unbeta'd it hurts. That said, new characters introduced, further world building experienced and a heavy focus on Bones in this chapter. I hope you enjoy!

The sky was on fire, a swirl of umber warmth and scarlet bright, the clouds stained gray where they streaked across the sky. Vapor trails rose from the cracked ground, pillars of curling steam that reached out into the burning above in arching spirals. Soot rained from above, thick flakes that wafted toward the ground in clumps of tarnished black that left clung to his skin, that did their best to paint him with their rot and their heat.

They clung to his eyelashes, made his gaze heavy and dark where he blinked, and his breath was a shimmering wave. His flesh bubbled under the onslaught, blisters festering to the surface where they stretched and ached while he turned sallow and ashen beneath their influence. There was no escaping the heat, and not a single ounce of fight to be found within his bones. 

Instead, his head tipped back, broken mouth gaping, and the crackling of his breath went in time with the sluggish pounding of his heart in his ears. Compliance in his blood, defeat so rich it felt like relief on his tongue, and there was the copper sour tang of blood in his mouth. The world stood in ruin around him, a crumble of color and an endless sky of heat, but he couldn’t even find the need to struggle against the pressing weight of it. 

He drank in the fire and felt it burn his lungs, he felt his blood curdled just as quickly as it boiled. There was a flashfire in his belly, a burst of molten heat from somewhere within, and his breath was smoke, his skin was ashen and dark. This was deliverance, this was death, this was the kind of end fitting for a man like him, this was the ruin that he deserved-

There was sweat on his skin, a layer so thick that the sheet beneath him had grown wet and tacky with it. It stuck to his shoulders when he sat upright in bed, clung to his skin and did its best to add to the crawling feel that had overtaken him. Pulling himself off the mattress, breathing shallow and his eyes burning, Len pressed his hands to his face. 

He couldn’t catch his breath, he couldn’t breathe, but the clock on the wall said it wasn’t even four am yet, and there would be no chance of sleep after this. 

“ _ Fuck _ .”

Trembling fingers slid across his temples, fisted in his hair, and he curled in on himself where he stood. Bare feet rocking across the floor, he hesitated for a moment, did his best to catch his breath, but there seemed to be no stopping the pounding of his heart where it thundered in his chest. A cottony taste in his mouth, a thick feel to his tongue, and Len pulled at his hair before pulling his sticky shirt over his head. 

Damp to the touch, it was heavy in his hand, and he dropped it into the hamper in the corner. A new shirt pulled over his head, a pair of soft sweats shimmed up over his hips, and Len stumbled out of his room. Dim lighting sifted through the windows, sending long shadows and shapes across the rest of the apartment as he crossed the living room, as he threw the blinds the rest of the way open and pushed at the sliding door. 

The outside air was bitter sharp, was full of sea salt tang and the quiet cut of night. He leaned against the retaining wall edge, the stone surface cool to the touch, and the world around him was almost blissfully still. The sloshing rush of waves was constant, an endless spill of sound that aided just enough in calming the pounding of his blood. His tongue was thick, his fingers stiff, and the chill of the air sent shivers across his skin, reminded him of just how sticky wet his hair was. 

A long blink, closing his eyes and tipping his head forward until he could lean on his arms and-

The dream was still there, burning at the backs of his eyes and festering at the back of his throat, the base of his skull. He could taste the smoke, could smell the rot, and he took in another sharp breath of salty air to chase the clinging echo away. The street below was empty, nothing more than the glow of the street lights and the lights on the dock, not a single soul in sight. The water that stretched out in front of him was inky, bottomless and consuming where it lapped against the boats anchored at the dock. 

A sharp ring, and a startled sound gurgled in his throat, heart ratcheting another staccato tempo in his chest. 

His cell, singing the same cheery tune Rita had assigned that he hadn’t gotten to changing, and he pulled the device out of his pocket. The number was unknown, and he only fumbled with it slightly before accepting the call, pressing it to his ear with hesitant motions.

“Hello?”

A crackle on the line like something had been dropped, a low, murmured curse, and he could almost ignore the way that his voice sounded rough even to his own ears. Another thump, a low scratching sound like the phone had been picked back up, and he could hear breathing.

“Look, it's too early for this shi-”

“Is it? Hell, what time  _ is _ it even?”

A wide blink, owlish in the dark, and Len pressed a hand to his forehead, fingers falling to clench around his jaw as he sighed in exasperation.

“It's 3:47, Jim. Why are you,” a flicker of light from the lighthouse and he paused, but it was just the beacon rotating, the pilot light spinning within it's housing as it sent a wash of light across the island before pointing out to sea once more. “Did you even sleep?”

_ Dad's on another bender _ , Rio had said yesterday morning, and Len knew what that word meant if only from muscle memory while at University. It meant no sleep, it meant forgetting to eat, it meant being buried so deep in something that the brain had decided was so important that he couldn't stop, and Len sighed as he listened to the growing silence on the other end of the line.

“I'm not sure.”

“Oh my  _ god _ .” 

A huff and he fell forward, bent until he could rest his forehead on the balcony ledge. He wasn't awake enough for this, but he was too awake for anything else and it was too early to wake Joanna, just like it suddenly seemed too late to try and go back to sleep. 

“What are you even doing? And why did you call me, how did you know I was awake?”

Another clattering sound in the background, quiet and metallic and sharp in how it echoed with the bounce of something hitting the floor. Another quiet curse, a mumble, the murmurings of a man distracted by his work and Len found that he was smiling in spite of himself.

“Interstellar soundwave readings. Did you know Pluto sings? Her rain technically, but she sings regardless. Sounds sad, like she's crying, but you can't exactly comfort a planet.”

Space, darkness and danger and a never ending horizon of the unknown that could kill a man just as quickly as it could leave him adrift, science and math that he didn't understand and theorems that went over his head. Stargazers and astronauts and fanatical believers that spoke of ancient aliens, men with their head in the clouds and a desperation in their hearts that he admired even if he didn't comprehend.

“Oh god, you're one of those people, aren't you?”

“Uh, you mean enlightened? I could wax you poetics about stellar nurseries and the gravitational influence of a photon star like I'm Ginuwine, baby.”

A choked sound, a gargle of laughter, and Len heard the echo of his own voice in the darkness. There was something surreal about being out at this time of night, with only the sound of his own voice, the rush of the ocean and the flicker of the street lights below to keep him company. 

“Are you always like this?”

A hum, a melodious tune, and he could hear the quiet buzz of something electric behind it, the tremble of static. 

“Probably? It might be the sleep deprivation, but that's pretty par the course. You always this grumpy?”

His smile turned into something else, a grin with the kind of deep curve and soft curl that spoke of younger years. Less wrinkles on his skin and more marijuana on his breath, more late nights at a party he shouldn't be at and less stress, a time that was before Joanna but at the cusp of Jocelyn. He offered it to the starry night then, that amused, self indulgent smile, and he lifted his head enough to rest his weight on his bent arm, to stare out at where the lighthouse made it's steady rotations. 

“Probably.”

Jim's laugh was a gut punched sound, was a near wheeze that sounded as off kilter as it did satisfying and Len leaned a little heavier on the balcony ledge. 

“Jim,” his voice was soft, a sigh of sound and a pull of breath, more curious than accusatory. “Why did you call me?”

“You were screaming.”

Brow furrowing, straightening where he stood, Len turned enough to see into the apartment once more. It was as dark within as it was without though, with not a single sign that Joanna even knew he was up. She would have flown down the stairs at the first cry, would have been in his room and invading his space, but his daughter was still asleep and safe up in her new room.

He hadn't made a sound.

“You expect me to believe that you heard me screaming in my sleep?”

“ _ Felt _ you screaming. I know a lot of things, like how someone comes awake after burning alive in their sleep.” The air pulled from his lungs, left him empty, left him aching, and Len swallowed with a dry throat and a thick tongue. A little wild eyed, a little rattled, his teeth ground together when he turned to stare at the lighthouse once more. “You were in distress, you needed someone.”

“Where are you.”

“My roof?”

A low sound, aggravated and unhappy in equal measures, and Len stared at the lighthouse for a long minute before taking a sharp, shaking breath. 

“You’re not going to explain, are you?”

Another hum, another quiet sound, and there was a harmonic warble in the background, a mournful sound that drew on for moments on end. Muffled and a little tinny, whatever Jim had started to say was lost beneath the sound, and Len felt his breath catch. A curl of sounds, the waver of a wooden flute echoing with an ethereal, bone deep pull that brought the burn of tears to his eyes. The singing sound settled upon them, made a home for itself in the silence that they had found between themselves. 

“Do you want me to?”

“I don’t know if you realize this Jim, but my life is a little fucked right now. An answer to  _ anything _ would be appreciated.”

His words were harsh, his voice tired, and there was a weariness to his body, an empty ache where his mother and sisters should have been. The house was too quiet, the air smelled wrong. The only person he had close enough to hold was his daughter, who seemed like she wanted to curl against him just as often as she seemed to want to ignore him. 

“Be downstairs at my mothers at six. Leave Joanna with her.”

“At  _ six _ ? Jim, she’s fourteen, she’s not going to want to get up at six.”

“Little suffering builds character, Lenny! Lenny? Eh, I’ll work on it.”

-

“I don’t like you right now.”

“I know.”

A mug of coffee in his hands, just hot enough that he could feel the burn of it leach into his palms, and Len took a slow sip. Almond, apricot and the faint bite of ginger, he pulled the cup back enough to stare down at the lid with a furrowed brow. He hadn’t ordered this, hadn’t ordered anything actually, Amanda had simply handed him the disposable mug after he bustled his daughter through the door with an affectionate, maternal smile on her pale face.

Like it was normal to have people in her shop at five fourty in the morning, and maybe it was, if appearances were to be believed. There was someone settled at one of the round little tables with a laptop already, tapping away at the keys with a furrowed brow and a stern concentration on his dark, broad features. Another pull of his coffee and Len grunted, shifted his stance to support the way that Jo had decided to flop her own weight against him.

A fat crown had been fitted on her head just as easily as a cup of coffee had been put in his hand, woven with lush bluebells, delicate sweet pea blossoms, purple and gold irises so heavy they drooped and thick curl of ivy. He wasn’t quite sure if she had noticed it yet or not, but there was a burst of a sweet, floral scent every time she moved even if it was only to fall a little further against him.

“The sun isn’t even up, Daddy.”

“I know.”

She was going to be irritated with him for a few hours yet at least, but part of him hoped that whatever Jim had planned would keep her distracted for most of it. She was supposed to help Amanda with something, but he wasn't quite sure how helpful a pouting teenager was going to be. 

Her flower crown bobbled, secured on her curls and dipping when she twisted her head enough to glare up at him, and Len just took a slow drink of his questionably flavored coffee in response. 

“Screw your face up much tighter and it's gonna stay that way, June bug.”

A quiet grumble, a murmur of something far from polite and curling in tone that she had no doubt picked up from Sol, and he bit back a sigh as she pushed off his chest to lean on the counter instead.

“Joanna, could you be a dear and put this apron on?” A careful phrasing made her order sound more like a hopeful question, but the way that Amanda held the apron out left little room for her command to be misunderstood. There would be no denying her, and the older woman gave his little girl a sweet smile even as she pushed the apron into Joanna's grasp. “Vaska’s going to give you some dough to pound out in the back, you're Daddy's got some errands to run with Jim.”

“Jim shouldn't be awake yet, he's sane people.”

Amanda grinned at the whine in Joanna's voice, and Len took another sip as the door jangled open, voice filtering past the plastic lid as he spoke.

“Jim never even went to sleep, June bug.”

Her dark eyes were horrified and wide as said man came ambling in through the front door, a loose swagger to his step that gave Len a moment of pause. Sunshine spilled threw his fingers where Jim finished snapping a tie into his hair to hold it up. The knot was sloppy, a few strands threatening to slip free near his face, but his eyes were bright and his smile smooth as he offered it to them. 

Beside him, Joanna groaned, fisting the apron in her small hands before rounding the counter. Jim caught her first though, something soft to his smile, indulgent and amused and quiet in the way that only a parent could ever be. His fingers on her shoulder, he adjusted her crown, held it in place while slipping the neck of the apron over her head with a practiced ease and a lack of hesitance to his motion, as if he hadn’t realized he possibly shouldn’t. Like helping someone elses child was common enough, and maybe it was, maybe the island was that tight knit, or maybe it was just Jim, or some combination thereof.

“Nails?”

“What?”

A quiet laugh, and Jim held his hands out, palm up and fingers wriggling until Joanna gave him hers with a slow, uncertain press. He pulled them up then, twisted her fingers so he could inspect the short shorn tips of her nails where her nerves had caused her to tear at them, forcing Len to hunt down the clippers just so she could cut them last night. 

“So, my Mom likes to have pretty things, but notice how her nails are short?” A smile on his face, and it only got wider when Joanna made an affirmative sound. “Make sure you keep yours that way when you’re going to help her out down here. Pastry dough likes to dry out quick if you’re not careful, and Mom uses goats milk and duck eggs so it’s extra creamy, but it’s also extra sticky. It’ll also cake under your nails extra fast, so, keep them short, yeah?”

Her mouth pursed and her brow furrowed, Joanna nodded along with his words, listened to him with the sort of rapture Len normally only saw from her when Rita had her tarot deck in hand. She hung on every word, took them to heart, and Len hid his smile behind his coffee cup as he watched them. Jim’s grin was soft, and he pressed his mouth to the backs of both her hands with a gentle kiss each. 

“Now, I’m going to steal your Daddy for a bit, okay? But my Mom’s going to feed you, and Vaska will teach you how to make super yummy stuff. Don’t let him scare you, he’s really sweet, he’s just not very good with people.”

Jo burrowed into his side when her hands were let go, and Len lifted his arm to wrap it around her. Another burst of sweet, soft flowers that nearly managed to cover the bitter bright burn of embers and smoke that clung to her, and he grunted when she pulled her arms tight around him. He probably deserved the way she squeezed, just a little too tight at the curve of his last ribs, a little vindictive and a little petty, and he didn’t know what else he had expected from her. She was  _ his _ daughter, and Len knew just how petty he could be, how excessive and mean he had a habit of being at the worst of times. 

She let him go after one last harsh squeeze, and Len watched the bounce of her short, tight curls as she ducked behind the counter and followed Amanda back into the kitchen.

And then there were two, three if he counted the young man leaning away from his laptop with an exasperated look on his face. He didn’t get much of a chance to decide though, because Jim simply turned on his heel and walked toward the door with the same loose, lazy swagger that he had swept in with. His coffee was less than half empty, and Len took another pull from it as he followed the golden haired man into the quiet, cool outside. 

The last of the fishing boats had pulled away from the dock while they were inside, a late start compared to the ones that had trolled out just after their phone call. The sun had started to come up against the rest of the island, a sprawl of violet and mulberry and crimson against the towering trees and rolling stretch of sheer cliffs and rocky beach. It wasn’t a Georgia sunrise, the angle of the sun on the horizon was all wrong and the air was far too cold for him to be able to mistake it for anything less than a strange, foreign land. 

The truck Jim led him to was cherry red, glossy in the morning light if only for the layer of condensation that had collected overnight. There was a curl of rust at the front bumper and a lopsided press of a waxy kiss to the passenger side window that had been there long enough to lose all of its color. The door opened on the first pull with a metallic groan, and Len closed it behind him just as Jim threw himself into the driver's seat. 

He didn't even have time to put on his seatbelt before the truck lurched away from the curb with a quiet roar as the tires caught and the engine flared to life. 

“Where are we going?” 

“Errands. Need to stop in on Glory, she's got an order for me, and then Remy and Rio up at the shop, kid forgot his breakfast and it's never safe to take food from a Bordelon, don't tell them I said that. Possibly Father Creed if he's in, but he might be away on business of Lux needed him bad enough, I never know that old man's schedule.”

He didn't recognize a single name, and he didn't necessarily think he was supposed to. Swathed in a blood and burgundy flannel, there was still something commanding in set of Jim shoulders and the casual way that he had told Len what to do. Either he wasn't used to being told no, or it had simply never occurred to him that he would be denied. It wasn't like Len had anything better to do, but Jim had no way of knowing that.

The sun was in their eyes, rising through the windshield and bathing the sky in vibrant, violent colors, and he squinted against it. 

“I figure everyone's been up in arms about Joanna, but has anyone asked you how you're doing?”

They hadn't actually, not really. His sisters had given him their own brands of affection, and his mother had called him  _ mijo _ while kissing his cheek, but none of them had really asked. Joanna had caused the fire, Joanna had been the one to scream and cry and shake and shut down. He'd packed their things, he'd quit his job, he'd driven across the country in a fashion that felt an awful lot like running, but they had never asked, and he had never offered.

“I'm fine, Jim.”

A low hum and an unimpressed expression on his face, and his heart seized a little when Jim took his eyes off the road on a wooded curve to look at him with his blatant disbelief. His grip tightened a little too much on his coffee cup, the lid threatened to pop, and Len swore, pushed a hand down on it to keep it in place. 

“See, my brother has this thing he tells me whenever I say that. Fine has a number of variables, fine is unacceptable.”

“Is there a point to this?”

A quiet laugh, exasperation and something past tired, and Jim threw the truck in park in a little gravel lot. His eyes were electric, and it was like a kick in the chest to have all that attention on him at once, but Len just gave him a scowl in response. 

“The point, Bones, is that you aren't fine. And you'll learn real quick around here that it's okay to not be fine, most of us really aren't. There's nothing wrong with that.”

“I'm sorry,  _ Bones _ ?”

Jim kicked the driver's door open with more force than was probably necessary, and gravel crunched under his boots when he swung himself out of the cab. Len just stared at him with an incredulous gap to his mouth to which Jim smiled, long and slow and deep. 

“Yeah, Bones. All you got left are your bones and your daughter, and way I look at it, I can't call you Daddy. Now c'mon, got shit to do, people to meet, possibly illegal flora to buy.”

A sputtering in his lungs and on his lips, and Jim just laughed at him, left him there to follow. And damn it but he did, folding himself out of the truck after he managed to find his breath and catching up to the other man with just a few long legged strides and more effort than he had anticipated. Jim didn’t seem particularly inclined to wait for him though, an easy amble to his steps where his boots crunched against the gravel as it moved from the width of the lot to a far more narrow path. 

A greenhouse stood before them, more of a cluster of buildings than a single structure, connected by enclosed walkways. It glittered in the light, a structure built of shimmering glass and blackened steel that gave way to cutting, geometric shapes and muted light due to the semi opacity of the glass of the main building. The door opened with a quiet creak and a rush of humid, musty air and Len paused in the entryway just to feel the warmth roll across his skin. 

“Shut the door!”

A wisp of a woman, a short cut of blonde shorn in haphazard waves and too large eyes, her lips were a frown, her voice music, and he moved out of the way so the door could swing shut behind them. She gave him little more than a glance, a pass of pale eyes that accessed and cut and possibly found him lacking in something before she gave her attention to Jim. A squeal on her breath, long arms and slender fingers that she held out for an embrace, the jovial request which was answered by a laugh from Jim and the tall man pulling her away from the counter and into his arms. 

He saw the hold, the familiarity between them, but there were speckles of light in the edges of his vision. Trembling shifts of color and brightness, and Len turned his head to find them, but there was nothing to be had but open air. Overflowing pots and window boxes of columbines surrounded him, sharp floral points and delicate, deep colors that he wanted to reach out and brush a finger across. They were inviting in their curve of color, and another pull of light came from just past his vision, causing him to turn. 

“You got a haircut!”

A croon to his voice, and Len gave up searching, turned to find Jim with his fingers feathering through her hair. The young woman gave a small shrug, a self conscious motion even as she leaned into the touch. 

“Danny doesn’t know yet, he’s been at the station since yesterday. It looks okay?”

“Arizona, you look beautiful no matter what you do with your hair. He’s going to love it. Now, I’ve got some new blood with me, and then I need to get stuff from Lo.”

Wide eyes found him again, settled on his skin and stuck this time, and Len offered a well mannered smile. Her head tipped, her cheeks colored, and Arizona wriggled out of Jim’s grasp to give him a hug instead. Quick pressure and the scent of something clean and bright, and he felt the brush of her mouth against his jaw in greeting before he could see her face again. 

“You must be Leonard. He’s not bossing you around yet, is he? He’s really terrible like that, but the rest of us just tend to ignore him. It’s easier that way.”

“Hey!”

Her nose scrunched when she smiled and her eyes crinkled, and the indignation in Jim’s voice was enough to make Len laugh. She gave him another squeeze around his waist before flitting back to the counter, fingers brushing flowers as she went. 

“She’s in the water room last I saw, but don't you dare bother her, James. She hasn’t been sleeping well, and she’s been contracting all day.”

“Braxton Hicks?”

“She hit thirty weeks yesterday, so most likely!”

Arizona’s voice curled after them in the air, Jim leading him away from the counter and through the main building to where it splintered off into a wide hall. The interior walls were done in a rich, stained maple wood that had been polished to a shine, and he navigated them through the space past the first door that showed a large room cast in near darkness with minimal lighting and flowers in full nocturnal bloom and onto the next. 

He could smell the water before he could see it, and Jim gave him a glance before pushing at the half open door. A series of water filled planters had been sunken into the ground, large enough to constitute being called small pools, with smooth stone retaining walls around each. He could hear the near silent hum of filtration systems even though he couldn’t see them, and the pools all held a variety of water blooming plants within their sloshing, gentle cradle. 

A few paces into the room and three pools from the door was a young woman with pale, copper golden hair pulled up into a high, frazzled tail and her body waist deep in the water. Her back to them, pale fingers skimmed the top of the water, cupping the foliage burst of a papyrus plant just to her left. The water had seeped into her shirt, turning the soft pink fabric into a heavy looking magenta, and the ends of her hair were curling wet like they had skimmed the water at one point before being pulled back. 

“Water help your back?”

A quiet sound, a faint tone, and she turned her head enough to see them where they stood just at the retaining wall. An upturned nose and full cheeks, cat eyes and a downturned mouth, she was a young thing, in her mid twenties if only just barely. Thin shoulders, slender arms, despite her slim form there was something about her body language that spoke of danger, of a coiled poison and poise than Len gave pause. 

Jim had no such reservations, slipping down to sit on the edge of the retaining wall with a smile at her. 

“I’m hot.”

“You are,” a bobbing of his head, an easy nod, and Jim’s grin was impish. “You’re also probably burning up. Cato won’t let you leave the house naked though, so this is really your best bet.”

Her smile transformed her face, made her features soft and her posture loosened enough that she looked more like a young woman and less like a weapon ready to strike. She turned to face them then, and she was indeed pregnant, a swell to her belly that crested over the water and her movements were slow. She was beautiful in the way that expectant mothers were, a soft glow to her pale skin, but his eyes caught on the scar at her throat. 

Jagged and thick as if it had healed poorly, cared for improperly or in questionable circumstances, it stretched from her right jugular to her left in the sloppy, too far arch that came when someone's throat was sliced. Silvery against the rest of her skin, she made no motion to conceal it and instead it was as if she wore the mark as a reminder. 

“I was kidnapped and held for a month for being a monster lover. It says a lot for how Hunters are often more monstrous than the things we hunt.”

Shame, hot and burning and quick to burst through his blood, and Len found her with cool grey eyes watching him and a quiet expression on her face. Beside them, Jim was only curiosity, but very little of his attention went to the other man as he stumbled over an apology. 

“I’m sorry ma’am, I didn’t mean to-”

A hand on his chest, she was closer than he had thought, and though her touch was gentle he fell silent beneath it. Her smile was soft, understanding even, and she took his other hand in hers, pulled it up until his fingertips could rest on the too smooth skin of her throat. 

“My husband’s a Doctor, I recognize that face. You mean well, you’re just concerned.”

He had been given reign to touch, and his fingers moved in slow motions, pressed to the scar and felt the trauma beneath. A few years old at least, healed over as best it could for the time being, and she tilted her head to allow him his exploration. 

“You were very lucky, ma’am.”

“Glory Absolon-Michel. My best friend is a high ranking court fae, very little of my life has to do with luck.”

“Fae?”

Her smile bloomed, her face held in his hands, and Glory lifted her hands to hold his wrists. Her touch was warm, her fingernails sharp, and she was as much a predator then as she was a young woman. A Hunter, as if he was supposed to knew just what that fully entailed, and she was vicious while she was soft, and and there were bursts of light once more. Swirls of color at the edges of his gaze, sunlight and fire and snow that moved in wavering motions. His head turned, distracted and her laughter was shimmering and almost harsh in how it rasped from between her teeth. 

Gossamer wings and delicate figures made of incandescent skin and iridescent light. Soft pinks and pale lilacs, deep blues and full bodied reds, he couldn’t see their faces even though he could see the glow that came from their wings and their forms. Thousands of firefly bright creatures swirled around them, drawn in by her laughter and easy in the air. His breath caught in his chest, and Len felt unbound and unprepared in their presence, but they kissed against his skin, little brushes of starlight warmth and tinkling bells wherever they touched in their curiosity. 

“You’re in a pixie nest, Doctor.” Kind eyes and a vicious smile, and Jim seemed more than content to let Glory rip the bandage free. “You didn’t think everything here was human, did you?” 


End file.
